If You Love Ted Lasso Like Dani Rojas Loves Football, Try Out These 14 TV Shows Next

Brockmire has a different angle on the sports-centric redemption story, but Ted Lasso fans will still find a lot to love. Jim Brockmire is a Major League Baseball announcer who gets demoted to the minor league circuit when he melts down on air after discovering his wife’s infidelity. More of a grumpy, blunt Roy Kent than a cheery, positive Ted Lasso, Jim has to try to rebuild his career and his life, all while surrounded by a quirky supporting cast.

Ted Lasso does his best to keep an optimistic outlook, even when things are falling down around him. That’s the same attitude you’ll find on Detroiters, a comedy about two best friends who are determined to make it in the advertising business . . . no matter how many times they fail. It gets much of its comedy from a similar place as Ted Lasso: the contrast between over-optimism and the crash-and-burn reality.

Does Ted Lasso have you curious about how soccer (sorry, “football”) became such an integral part of British culture? The English Game has some answers! Set in the 1870s, the series follows the early years of organised soccer in the UK, as an elite team of wealthy athletes compete against a working-class team for the championship. Ted Lasso has lightly touched on issues of class, although it’s more of a simmer in the background, The English Game drives home who soccer is really for.

Europeans have their football, and Americans have theirs, too. If you want a show with Ted Lasso-sized heart and an American twist, Friday Night Lights is the way to go. Coach Taylor is tasked with coaching a high school football team in small-town Texas, where football really is life. After a shocking injury to one of his stars, Coach Taylor and his team face an even bigger uphill climb. But like Ted Lasso, it’s ultimately a show about hope and community, even when things seem to be at their darkest.

Ted Lasso is all about Ted’s own brand of philosophy in sports, while The Good Place often gets heady about big spiritual and philosophical concepts – think life and death, good and evil, and who really controls our fates. Still, the beloved NBC comedy strikes a lot of the same heartwarming, sneakily smart chords as Ted Lasso. As a quartet of misfits and one mysterious immortal being navigate the strangeness of the afterlife, they learn to process their pasts and actually grow, all with a side of sly humour and a big heart.

The League takes place in the competitive world of fantasy sports, and yet, ironically, it’s actually darker and more intense than Ted Lasso is in the world of professional sports! At the show’s centre is a group of friends whose obsessions with their fantasy league and their favourite teams take their toll on their real lives. It’s not hard to imagine these loud, competitive pals as counterparts to Ted Lasso‘s opinionated bar regulars, and it’s a sports comedy that really steeps itself in the details of the sports world.

Beneath its wacky sitcom hijinks, Ted Lasso also happens to be a very poignant and sometimes all-too-real look at mental health and family dynamics. That’s what One Day at a Time does, too, balancing an old-school sitcom style with a very contemporary approach to topical issues. As the Alvarez family and their friends go through life, they also deal with issues of PTSD, racism and colourism, gender and sexuality, substance abuse, divorce, and more. Like Ted Lasso, it’s a show that wears its heart on its sleeve and reminds us that these issues can’t be swept under the rug, but also that we can get through it.

A do-gooder with a can-do personality takes over a team that has a much less sunny outlook, then transforms their lives. Are we talking about Parks and Recreation or Ted Lasso? Both! Leslie Knope and Ted Lasso are clearly cut from the same cloth, with positive attitudes and unstoppable optimism that can’t help but improve the lives of everyone they meet – even if things sometimes get worse before they get better.

Ted Lasso‘s story of an outsider being brought into a high-profile role with sky-high stakes also applies to Pitch, a short-lived but much-loved baseball drama. Ginny Baker is the first woman player in Major League Baseball, and the show follows her struggles with her teammates, the fans, the higher-ups of baseball, and more. As a bonus, Mark-Paul Gosselaar plays a proto Roy Kent, the grumpy but secretly awesome veteran player who resists change but develops a grudging admiration for Ginny.

Ted Lasso followed Schitt’s Creek as the best comedy winner at the Emmys, but the two shows have a lot more in common than just their award records. Like Ted Lasso, the Rose family find themselves in a new and intimidating environment, far from everything and everyone they know. Although they don’t exactly start out with a Ted-like chipper attitude, they eventually come to love their new home and undergo incredible growth as people. Fundamentally, it’s a deeply kind but never condescending show about finding yourself and finding your people, and that’s exactly what Ted Lasso is, too.

Scrubs and Ted Lasso have one very important thing in common: series creator Bill Lawrence. Both shows feature a group of messy misfits who become a family in their own way, getting into mischief and reflecting on life along the way. Scrubs is a little less subtle than Ted Lasso in its humour, and it’s definitely a product of its time, but it’s easy to draw a line between the Sacred Heart Hospital crew and our faves at AFC Richmond.

If you enjoyed Roy Kent’s brief stint as a commentator on Ted Lasso (or if your favourite character is secretly Trent Crimm of The Independent), Sports Night should be next in your viewing queue. Instead of focusing on the athletes and coaches, the dramedy puts the staffers at a sports network front and centre. It’s also about how sports can reflect life and change lives, while simultaneously struggling with a classic underdog story and some surprisingly big emotional journeys.